Are juries sufficiently sensible to make rational decisions in malpractice and other sorts of personal injury cases? Many scholars believe that malpractice cases should be decided by expert arbitrators because lay people can't understand complex medical issues.

Professor Vidmar begs to differ. In an exhaustive study of malpractice cases in North Carolina (part of an even larger study of malpractice litigation that has been undertaken by Duke University), he gives fascinating descriptions of the facts of malpractice cases as they are litigated. He then describes the interviews that he did with the jurors after their verdicts. The common sense displayed by these fact-finders is enough to impress even the most skeptical. Comparisons of decisions in the same sorts of cases by arbitrators and by physicians reviewing medical files for insurance companies indicate that the conclusions reached by jurors and those of the “professionals” differ little, if at all.